


making the cut

by ciaconnaa



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Gen, and the appearance of one april jones parker, and they go to the same school skjghkjdshgjshk, brad flash and peter all have kids the same age, humor and fluff and maybe a splash of the ridiculous, just my usual brand of absurd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:08:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23600575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ciaconnaa/pseuds/ciaconnaa
Summary: Generally, when Peter is away on Spidery Avenger Business, MJ's days with their daughter are quiet and uneventful.But when MJ gets a call at work from April’s school saying she needs to come down immediately, she figures, eh. This might as well happen. They were overdue for an incident anyhow.or;April Jones Parker opens up an illegal hair salon at school. Brad Davis getting pissed is a beautiful bonus.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Comments: 49
Kudos: 418





	making the cut

Despite his affliction to maintain his _Friendly Neighborhood Spidey!_ M.O., it seems the older he gets, the more he finds himself out of the city he loves so much.

It’s never easy on MJ, she can admit it - she’s always on edge, thinking about the damage he’ll roll. Nothing’s really been as life threatening as when he went to space with Stark and died, nor when he almost got shot in London _after_ getting hit by a bullet train, but he tends to come home busted in some way or another. The last major mission he had seemed harmless enough - the wilderness of Alaska - but he still came back with a broken leg and busted eardrums that left him using sign language she could barely understand and horrible attempts at lip reading until his freaky lightspeed healing could fix the damage a week later.

But at the same time, MJ kinda loves it. Even if she’s a bit of her own carbon copy, here’s no doubt that April is Peter’s daughter - she constantly feeds off of Peter’s high-strung energy, and combined with her intelligence and Peter’s job as a stay at home dad, it’s like having two Peter’s in the house. But when he’s gone, the energy matches her and becomes _muted -_ not in a sad way, but more in a way that MJ can actually get to learn a lot about April because she isn’t literally bouncing off the walls. She talks, chatters _incessantly,_ but MJ thinks it’s kind of cute that she tends to match her deadpan tone as she explains the intricacies of growing out her hair like Rapunzel so her Halloween costume can be as accurate as possible.

This week he’s in the Andes mountains with Scott, Bucky, and Sam. He’s sent half a dozen pictures of the scenery with captions that brought out some of the silliness he’s still possessed since he was fifteen. It all seems like a serious breach of security on his part, especially with something that seems like a recon mission, but she’s not the one who once worked with the great Black Widow, so what does she know?

April has enjoyed the pictures immensely. Apparently, mountains are the _prettiest,_ and far better than beaches. She claims she wants to climb Mt. Everest one day, followed by a question that, when she sees the Yeti at the top, would he like it if she brought him a plate of cookies.

Her daughter is wacko and she loves it.

Due to Peter’s chaos factor being temporarily removed, the days MJ spends along with April have a seriously low incident rate. They order take out, watch _Casablanca_ (because she’s weirdly obsessed), do puzzles, read books, and then go to bed on time.

So when MJ gets a call at work from April’s school saying she needs to come down _immediately,_ she figures, eh. This might as well happen. They were overdue for an incident, anyway.

She doesn’t exactly speed through traffic to get there. One time, when Peter was fighting some lizard on the television, she went to get April when they called and said she fell on the playground and got hurt. When it was nothing more than a scrape, she dumped antiseptic on the cut, slapped an Iron Man bandaid on her leg, and sent April back out on the playground. Told the school the next time they call her, it better be for something _serious._

She doesn’t know if it’s _serious_ when she walks in and sees April Parker, Eugenia Thompson, and Vincent Davis sporting the worst haircuts known to man, but she does know it’s funny as hell.

“MJ!” April says with delight. Her little legs dangle off the chair, and she swings them back and forth excitedly.

“‘Sup, squirt,” she says with a nod before she gives her daughter their patented fist bump. “New look?” With a quick read of the room, she deduces that the kids don’t look upset in the slightest - Eugene looks a little bewildered but Brad looks downright pissed.

The day just gets better and better. She knew the freaky coincidence that they all had children around the same time would come to be extremely amusing sooner or later.

Before the principal can get to explaining, April lays it all down. “We gave each other haircuts!” she says. To say that the pigtails in her hair are uneven is an understatement. The right one is a good six inches shorter than the other. Eugenia’s braid has been hacked off right above the shoulder. Vincent’s short hair is patchy in the worst way possible.

“Your daughter _cut_ my son’s hair,” Brad snaps. Vincent shrinks at his tone.

“Your son cut _my_ daughter’s hair,” Eugene points out, but there’s no bite. He looks tired. “They all took turns.”

“Halloween is coming up. April’s hair isn’t long enough for Rapunzel, so she wanted it short, like in the movie,” Eugenia, always the timid voice of reason, explains. 

“They don’t let us have shards of glass like the movie,” and MJ nods in a way that says _fair, but bummer._ “So I had to use scissors.”

“Safety scissors?” MJ asks her, but she ends up looking at the principal for confirmation. He nods, looking shocked that MJ isn’t furious at the state of these children’s hair. “Then what’s the problem?” When he opens his mouth and no words come out like some big dumb fish, she turns to the children. “You all gave each other permission?”

“Yeah!” they all agree, Vincent finally looking happy that he might not be in trouble.

“You guys _like_ your haircuts?”

April pouts. “We didn’t get to _finish_ because Miss Georgia took away the scissors.”

“It was fun,” Eugenia says quietly, and Vincent nods his head in agreement. They don’t seem to be lying; she looks at Eugene just to be sure and he meets her gaze, shrugging helplessly. Cool. Means he agrees. Seems he’s just as annoyed to be called down as she is.

MJ ignores Brad’s budding argument and instead asks, “So what’s the problem? I told you if you call me again, she better be dying, _not_ if she was opening up a hairstyling workshop. They’re obviously _not_ upset. They agreed to it. It’s their hair, they can do what they want with it.”

Brad scoffs. “Seriously? Look, I understand you’re that hippy dippy brand of parent that lets your kid call you by your first name -”

“-Mommy’s my _friend_ and her _friends_ call her MJ -”

“But you can’t expect me to go along with the same ridiculous ideals. The fact that your daughter came up with this whole plan and then cut my son’s hair at his age without _my_ permission is unacceptable, and quite frankly we need to discuss consequences.”

MJ snorts. “Like what? Suspend her from _kindergarten?”_

“You know what? Yeah, maybe -”

Eugene interrupts with a heavy sigh. “Dude. It’s just hair. It’ll grow back. The kids aren’t hurt, I really don’t think we should make a big deal of this.”

“Easy for you to say! Your girls can go to a salon and even it out! Look at Vincent! I’m going to have to shave his head.”

“I don’t mind, Daddy,” Vincent whispers. “I hate brushing it anyway.”

MJ’s gives a pointed look at the principal, gesturing to the kids like, _see?_ “Are we done here?” She wiggles her fingers and April jumps out of her seat, running to her and clinging herself to her side. “I’ve got to go back to work.”

“No, we’re not _done,_ Michelle -”

“Ohmygod,” MJ whispers out hurriedly, pinching the bridge of her nose. “He’s not gonna let this go, is he?” she asks the principal, who, kind of shrinks in his seat. “What’s the punishment for this kind of thing?”

The principal sorta blank-faces. “This sort of thing never happens. I’ve never had a group of kids agree to give each other haircuts.”

MJ sighs. “Brad,” she grinds out. “If the school quote on quote _suspends_ April for three days, will that satisfy your egotistical need to be above everyone else?”

Eugene fails to conceal a snorted out laugh, instead smothering it over some bad fake coughing.

Anger flashes in Brad’s eyes. “ _Michelle_ this is not about -”

She cuts him off, looking down at her daughter as she strokes what’s left of one of her pigtails. “Great. A solution to this nonexistent problem has been found." It's not like kindergartners have permanent records, so MJ doesn't find it in her to care about a technicality. "April, you’re gonna have to stay home for a few days, that okay?”

Her brows furrow, obviously confused, but she goes along with it the best way she knows how: negotiation. “Can we have pizza for dinner?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

She gives the room a tight smile. “Great. Settled. Always a pleasure Vincent, Eugenia.” She shakes the kids hands like they know they like. “Mister Eugenia's dad,” she nods to Eugene who rolls his eyes, but she sees the corner of his lips turn up in a small smile. MJ’s face drastically drops as she narrows her eyes at Brad. “Davis.”

When Brad rolls his eyes it’s far angrier than Eugene’s ever was. He waves her off without another word, and MJ doesn’t waste time in hightailing it out of there.

They get a few looks as they head to the nearest train station, enough to make April shy away from the public and cling to MJ’s hand a little tighter than she might have. They’re only a block away from the station when she comes up with an idea.

“We can call Pepper,” she explains, “And we can all go to a fancy salon and get our hair done.”

“Don’t you have to go back to work?”

“Yeah, that was a lie,” she says, fishing out her phone and texting Ned that she’s gonna be out for the rest of the day with a promise to share the grade school drama that is April’s hair cutting ring later. “Thought we could hang out together instead. So what do you say, April Jones Parker? Salon to even it out and finish what Miss Georgia wouldn’t let you finish?”

April wrinkles her nose. “That doesn’t sound fun. Daddy always cuts my hair. We sing songs and watch _His Girl Friday._ I want him to do it.”

“Okay,” MJ agrees, pocketing the phone. “But I’m not sure when your dad is gonna get back. It could be a few days. Are you gonna be okay with hair like this for that long?”

April considers this, touching the long pigtail she has left. “...Do _you_ know how to cut hair?”

“I think I can manage yours.” She admits, and her daughter gasps in excitement. “But if I’m cutting hair, we’re doing a remix.” She stops in the middle of the street and leans down to April’s level. “Beethoven and National Geographic.”

She gasps again, even more excited. “I love Clair de Lune!”

“That’s Debussy,” she says, standing straight and grabbing April’s hand again. They start walking towards the nearest hair supplies store instead. “I’m willing to make that substitution, though.”

The look on the shopkeepers face is priceless when they walk in. She immediately points MJ and April in the direction of scissors. As she looks over the choices, April gently tugs on her arm and points to the end of the aisle. “Look, MJ! Colors! I want colorful hair! Can we do that?”

“Sure. Go pick one out.”

“ _Any_ color? _”_

“Yup. Your hair is a canvas, babe. Go wild.”

She expects April to return with hot pink or neon green, but she’s surprised when she comes back with a muted red. “This is pretty! I like red hair. Pepper has red hair!”

“She does.” She grabs the box from her daughter’s hands and reads it over before making a decision. “Go ahead and grab another box.”

April puts two and two together. “You’re gonna do it, too!?”

“Yeah, why not? Like you said, it’s really pretty. Plus, we’ll match.” Neither of them point out that they already match. “Sounds cool, huh?”

“Super cool!” 

The shopkeeper goes from stunned to a little endeared as she checks them out; April has that effect on people. And judging by her bright blue hair, MJ would guess that she would be on her side on this whole hair cutting fiasco, and fully supports any and all spontaneous hair style changes. 

They pick up pizza as promised before they head home. April gets maybe two bites in before she’s claiming she’s full and running to her room to change into something _old and ratty._ She returns wearing the half-finished Rapunzel costume with an explanation that with red hair, she’s gonna have to be Ariel for Halloween, so Peter’s just gonna have to sew another costume and this one is as good as old and ratty.

She doesn’t argue because she knows Peter will do whatever April says. Sucker.

They put on music and National Geographic plays on mute with subtitles; they set up a little camp in the living room, putting down sheets so they don’t make a mess, and MJ goes first, quietly explaining how to do it so that April can reciprocate even though MJ is 98.9% sure that she’s gonna have to wear a hat until this stuff washes out. But, after all, the theme of the day has seemed to be that it’s just hair, and she finds she doesn’t really care what it’ll turn out to look like.

They go through the whole process of cutting her hair, then dyeing, washing, styling, and drying on April first so she can see the results. MJ’s no hairstylist, but she thinks maybe she should consider it as a fallback career because the girl looks _cute;_ her hair now brushes her shoulders in soft red and bouncy curls.

“Now you, now you!” April barely looks at herself for more than thirty seconds, too excited to make MJ look the same.

It takes her three times as long, wearing plastic gloves that are far too big for her hands, but April commits and gets the job done. MJ washes it out herself but lets April comb through it and squeeze the product in to make the curls. By the time they’re at that step the program is long done and the playlist is over, leaving them with only the soundtrack of the city: cars honking, construction a few blocks down. The neighbors laughing downstairs. But it’s still pretty quiet. Peaceful.

“Looks good,” MJ compliments, and she finds it’s true. April beams, grinning without words, before she goes back to concentrating _very very hard_ on the styling of the new red hair.

“Hey, MJ?”

“Yeah, buddy.”

“I’m glad we’re friends,” she says, dropping MJ’s hair so she can use both arms to wrap them around her mother in a hug. 

MJ leans into it and strains her neck, reaching behind her to give her a kiss - she barely brushes her daughter’s nose, and April erupts in giggles. “Yep. Best friends. I call dibs. Your dad can cry me a river.”

“My _best_ friends call me AJ,” April whispers, like it’s a secret, like it’s a code for a special club. 

MJ supposes that it is.

* * *

“Hey, baby! Look at you two! I like the red.”

MJ watches as Peter fights a grimace when AJ runs into him full speed with a shout of his name; he still picks her up, but she can see that he’s in pain. He hides it by the time he’s got her propped up on his hip. “What prompted the hair cut, hmm? I thought we were gonna go for a Rapunzel look for Halloween. You haven’t let me cut your hair in _months.”_

“Wasn’t gonna be long enough. So MJ cut it! Now I’m gonna be Ariel. We gotta go to the store to get stuff to make the costume! Please, Daddy? Please, please, pleaaaase?” 

“Okay, okay,” Peter smiles, because yes, he is, in fact, a sucker. “We can work on it tomorrow when I pick you up from school.”

AJ shakes her head. “Nu-uh. No school. I’m _suspended.”_

Peter’s mouth falls open in surprise. “Suspended?”

“It means stay away from school.”

“I know what it means, darling, I just -” He trails off, looking at MJ for help. “Suspended?” he repeats.

She shrugs. “Opened a salon on the playground without a cosmetology degree.”

Peter opens and closes his mouth, trying to respond, but the lack of conversation quickly becomes too boring for AJ’s taste; “I cut Vincent’s hair!”

 _That_ gets him to snap out of it. “Brad’s son!?”

“Uh-huh!”

Peter groans, slapping his free hand over his eyes. “Oh, god.”

AJ adds insult to injury. “Eugenia, too.”

“Of course.” He sighs, groaning as she shifts AJ to his other side. “Well, did they like their haircuts? They were okay with it?”

“Yeah! Of course! Well, everyone except Mr. Davis. But Vincent really wanted it all off, I swear! 

Peter shakes his head, a smile betraying his supposed exasperation. Pissing off Brad Davis will do that to him. “I believe you, April. But maybe no more salon on the playground, okay?”

“AJ!”

“Huh?”

“My bestest friends call me AJ. Like we call Mommy MJ!”

Peter’s expression softens, and in that moment she sees how tired he is, but also how in love he is. He always looks at their daughter like he can’t believe she’s real. He leans forward and presses his nose to hers, making her giggle. “Okay, AJ.”

“Daddy?”

“Mhmm?”

“Can we dye your hair red?”

He sighs, like he knows he’s not gonna win this one. “...Yeah. Why not.”

AJ wiggles out of her grip and runs down the hall to see what’s left of the hair dye. As soon as she’s gone, he leans over in a wheeze, gritting his teeth and holding his side.

“Broken ribs, huh.”

Peter is a sorry sight, mouthing _four_ and holding up the same amount of fingers before he gets it together upon AJ’s returns, pretending like nothing’s wrong. Their daughter sits Peter in a chair before she runs off for more gloves.

“You know,” Peter sighs, moving to try and find a position that doesn’t ache. “I can’t tell if we’re good or bad parents by letting her dye our hair.”

MJ shrugs before she grabs her book off the kitchen table, flipping to the end of the chapter she just finished. “We’re definitely the _coolest_ parents. That’s gotta count for something.”

There’s a gasp from down the hall. “MJ! I found _pink_ hair dye!”

Peter sags in the chair. “How is it possible you two got into more shenanigans this week than _Spider-Man?”_

“Dunno. At least all our ribs are in one piece. Bring it here, AJ!” MJ shouts back.“Dad’s gonna love it.”

Peter closes his eyes with a groan.

**Author's Note:**

> hi i do realize that the chances of mj and peter, brad, and flash all having kids at the same time are very unlikely. however it is insanely funny so it's canon in my fics
> 
> I wrote this all today. I'm trying to churn out some quick and light fics for all of you to enjoy since I know a lot of us, unfortunately, have a lot of spare time on our hands. I hope it brings you some joy and entertainment! I'll try to have another one up in a few days!


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